Week of 1/6-11/2025: Compassion & Spiritual Warriorhood

January 6, 2024: Further Lessons from the Universe: Interdependence & Compassion
We explore certain “habits” of the universe that expand our souls. First, we look at interconnectivity or interdependence. Compassion is “the moral law” of interconnectivity, the cosmic law of responding to another’s pain and suffering. Hildegard of Bingen said: Everything that is in the heavens on the earth, and under the earth is penetrated with connectedness, penetrated with relatedness. And Meister Eckhart said: What happens to another, whether it be joy or sorrow, happens to me. The Dalai Lama says: We can do away with all religion, but we can’t do away with compassion. Compassion is my religion. Jesus said: Be you compassionate as your Father in heaven is compassionate. (Lk 6:36)

January 7, 2025: Creativity & Compassion: More Lessons from the Cosmos
The root for the word “compassion” in Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic comes from the word womb. In calling us to compassion, we are reminded that the universe is God’s womb, a place of gestation and fertility and creativity. What we now know is that from the moment of the universe’s birth, 13.8 billion years ago, it has been teeming with creativity. Birthing, begetting, dying, and being reborn—all this happens to stars and planets, galaxies and microbes, as well as plants, birds, animals and humans.  Creativity is baked into the universe. As Meister Eckhart put it: “What does God do all day long? God lies on a maternity bed giving birth.” Our creativity, vast and wondrous and diverse as it is, is to be used for spreading compassion and justice. 

January 8, 2025: Cultural Transformation & The Need for Spiritual Warriors
Both November 5th and January 6th call us to be spiritual warriors. In times like these we are all called to interfere. To stand up to greed in its many manifestations, we need to be spiritual warriors. Gus Speth, former dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, says this: I used to think that top global environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change…. I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed, and apathy, and to deal with these we need a spiritual and cultural transformation. And we scientists don’t know how to do that.* 

January 9, 2025: Politics, Science, Spirituality and Spiritual Warriors
As a result of the grief so many of us feel due to both November’s election as well as January 6th, many Americans have a undergone a kind of kenosis, or emptying, as a prelude for what comes next. Mahatma Gandhi taught that spirituality and politics go together and those who do not recognize that do not know what religion means. If the political order is vital for the attainment of “the highest earthly good,” moral outrage is indeed in order when a fascist project like Project 2025 lurks on the horizon. As Thom Hartmann puts it, “the oligarchs are no longer just at the gates,” they are “moving into the White House.” But the rupture occurring today in politics and human consciousness can be a prelude to a new future. And spiritual warriors will be the leaders.

January 10, 2025: On Becoming a Spiritual Warrior in a Time of Apocalypse
How does one become a spiritual warrior? By taking care of body and soul. By developing “moral imagination.” By stepping up to the plate to do what needs to be done. By being both mystic and prophet. By finding allies and working together with other spiritual warriors. By creating rituals, ceremonies, and liturgies to give thanks and awaken Joy. The Cosmic Mass is a fine example of such nourishing rituals. A spiritual warrior heeds the wisdom of Dietrich Bonhoeffer who observed that action springs not from thought but from a readiness for responsibility…Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act. 

January 11, 2025: Raging Fires in LA: Are Climate-Denying Politicians Criminals?
Only a couple months ago, we saw the catastrophic effect of floods in North Carolina and Tennessee. Now we see the impact of horrific, raging wildfires in the second largest city of the nation. Climate change is on full display for those with eyes to see and ears to hear. Unbelievably, some still deny its reality. Some even forbid the use of the phrase “climate change” in any official correspondence. With regard to the LA fires, one observer said:  “This is not just a tragedy. It is a crime.” Meanwhile, a fire ecologist named Morgan Tingley posted this on Bluesky: The insanity of being a fire ecologist in the epicenter of a major fire event, bags packed and ready to evacuate, watching active fire from my window, while taking media requests and explaining to the public, for the 100,000th time, how climate change is largely responsible for this.

**Cited in Rabbi Yonatan Neril & Rabbi Leo Dee, Eco Bible Volume 1: An Ecological Commentary on Genesis and Exodus, p. xviii

Banner image: Fighting for our future (cropped). Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Recommended Reading

Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality

Matthew Fox lays out a whole new direction for Christianity—a direction that is in fact very ancient and very grounded in Jewish thinking (the fact that Jesus was a Jew is often neglected by Christian theology): the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality, the Vias Positiva, Negativa, Creativa and Transformativa in an extended and deeply developed way.
“Original Blessing makes available to the Christian world and to the human community a radical cure for all dark and derogatory views of the natural world wherever these may have originated.” –Thomas Berry, author, The Dream of the Earth; The Great Work; co-author, The Universe Story

A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice

In A Spirituality Named Compassion, Matthew Fox delivers a profound exploration of the meaning and practice of compassion. Establishing a spirituality for the future that promises personal, social, and global healing, Fox marries mysticism with social justice, leading the way toward a gentler and more ecological spirituality and an acceptance of our interdependence which is the substratum of all compassionate activity.
“Well worth our deepest consideration…Puts compassion into its proper focus after centuries of neglect.” –The Catholic Register

Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation

Authors Adam Bucko and Matthew Fox encourage us to use our talents in service of compassion and justice and to move beyond our broken systems–economic, political, educational, and religious–discovering a spirituality that not only helps us to get along, but also encourages us to reevaluate our traditions, transforming them and in the process building a more sacred and just world. Incorporating the words of young activist leaders culled from interviews and surveys, the book provides a framework that is deliberately interfaith and speaks to our profound yearning for a life with spiritual purpose and for a better world.
“Occupy Spirituality is a powerful, inspiring, and vital call to embodied awareness and enlightened actions.”
~~ Julia Butterfly Hill, environmental activist and author of The Legacy of Luna: The Story of a Tree, a Woman, and the Struggle to Save the Redwoods

Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society

Visionary theologian and best-selling author Matthew Fox offers a new theology of evil that fundamentally changes the traditional perception of good and evil and points the way to a more enlightened treatment of ourselves, one another, and all of nature. In comparing the Eastern tradition of the 7 chakras to the Western tradition of the 7 capital sins, Fox allows us to think creatively about our capacity for personal and institutional evil and what we can do about them. 
“A scholarly masterpiece embodying a better vision and depth of perception far beyond the grasp of any one single science.  A breath-taking analysis.” — Diarmuid O’Murchu, author of Quantum Theology: Spiritual Implications of the New Physics